COIMBATORE: Despite its effort to initiate the smart city project, the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) is lacking far behind in providing basic amenities to the city’s residents.
Experts have urged the civic body to ensure provision of basic amenities like regular water supply, clearing of sewage, storm water drains and proper solid waste management (SWM) across the city. There is no use in implementing smart city project if these requirements are yet to reach the public.
“Similar to foreign countries, the city is in urgent need to develop a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) or Light Rail Transit (LRT) Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS). If any of these projects would be implemented, traffic chaos in the city would be reduced as the public would start moving through the mass transport system,” said P Arun Prasath, an architect and member of the City Technical Advisory Group.
According to him, hereafter, the government is not likely to go for constructing flyovers as they have to accommodate common man and two-wheelers. As per the urban traffic policy, the State government is giving importance to the common man.
“The civic body needs to consider creating skywalks connecting the city’s lakes. Apart from skywalks, importance would be given to develop the lake bunds for using them as walking track and park. Likewise, a satellite town should be created and urban cultural center should be developed,” he pointed out.
The civic body has currently submitted preliminary report to the State and Central government under ‘city-wide concept plan’ for Coimbatore.
Under the ‘pan city project’, the civic body has proposed a separate grievance-based app for the entire departments and installing street lights which are enabled with wi-fi and CCTV camera facilities, and it would also be linked to the app. The third proposal calls for providing separate underground lanes for phone and other cables to prevent frequent digging up of roads.Under the area-based development, the civic body has asked the consultant to carry out field studies, and to check the possibilities for improving slum areas and linking and improving the city’s lakes.